I’d quite like to go and play in the IMJ cesspit again for a while, but i’m comprehensively banned after the ‘Bolton is a shit hole’ fun of a couple of years ago! 
Ah yes, after leaving the first time, I did join in July '18 just to witness the sh!tstorm around the course changes. I left shortly after.
It may seem odd, but the last 3 days worth of comments on here are probably the most constructive I’ve ever read regarding the persuit of a better swim technique/time.
If you read 99% of what’s out there, you would genuinely believe it should be the least physically testing of the 3 disciplines, and if it’s not, your doing it wrong.
Strangely, I enjoy the short reps with my ankles banded together! I generally use finger paddles and it definitely makes you use the arms to try and maintain a good momentum & turnover, thus keeping the legs from dragging.
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yes that picture made me laugh, never has a picture been so inappropriate
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My friend was an above average backstroker, he was Kent masters champ at 40 for the hundred and got the county record, 1:09 or something. He said he couldn’t climb out the pool after it was that bad, threw up poolside and was a mess for a good hour or so. That is real swimming. With the younger kids I get them pulling themselves out of the pool from the deep end, using forearms. Catching should feel as hard as that as you are pulling columns of very dense liquid back and if its easy you aren’t catching the water. Again sorry to mention him but the reason Sutton uses paddles a lot is because he wants to develop the swim specific muscles quicker (due to not having time to do 70k + per week for years!). That way catching a good amount of water doesn’t fatigue you as quickly. The caveat there is some coaches do just that and whats the point of having the muscle power to catch huge columns of water only to not technically catch that amount or to create large amounts of drag. Think of riding on a vicars bike. Do you improve position for limited effort or do you train to add 200 watts to your FTP to overcome the drag with brute force, or is the answer as always somewhere in the middle
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Registration at Ironman Hamburg last year. A middle-aged Danish guy asks at the Info Point "when do we find out if we have to swim"
SMH
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didn’t swim this morning, stoopid head cold and “sore” eyes?
Before the Outlaw in 2017 I did a lot of paddle swiiming, long reps like 4x1km as swim, pull&paddles, repeat. But then going into the one last year I was swimming a lot faster over short distances in the pool but for my longer reps sessions I barely used paddles. The result being a much slower swim in the Outlaw. I know it wasn’t just the paddles, there were what I can see now as blatant training errors but I do think more paddle work would have helped. (Avoiding suffering wasn’t one of the training errors).
It’s a big part of why I went through the entire 100 V Oly swim thread with Solaire, Rooster, etc.
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Easy 6 02 for 400m this morning, at the end of a decent set of 25,50 and 100 CSS reps.
Not as great as where I was in November, off 10-11km per week over five sessions, but the Diesel engine is being tuned up and that metronomic 1:31/32 per 100m is slowly sinking in
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I did a 6:14 the other day without killing myself, but I think my sub-6 days are finally over…unless I use neoprene 
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Havent swum in ~ 3 months, 1600m of 25’s and 50’ all 25s off ~5seconds RI holding 21-23seconds and the 50’s off ~10seconds RI holding 47ish seconds 1600m. Aching today a bit but fairly conservative HR during the swim.
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after 4 months of focusing very heavily on stroke rate to lift it a bit, have started to shift attention to an early vertical forearm, and a decent catch then pull.
a short 1500m this evening in 100m repeats (arms started to let me down at this point, so stopped before technique fell to pieces) which resulted in average 1:46 pace inc a short warm up, which would have been unthinkable a few months back, where the milestone pace was sub 2 mins… best of all, SR was high 60’s…
Chuffed to bits!.. and think that a lot of the drivers behind the improvements have come from this thread, in particular the last few days, with a reminder that its mean to be hard work!.. thanks all!
(arms a ‘bit’ sore now )
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superb consistency in training and clearly showing some swimming breakthrough, well done dude
I’ve now been in the water 6 out of the last 8 days. I feel like I’m beginning to get somewhere with both my stroke, and my fitness. Just need to keep the consistency going…
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The OHR when swimming on the 945 at least seems reasonable, to the point where it should provide some insight. The only bit where it seems to go askew is when doing kick. Wrist isn’t moving, so the HR is definitely artificially low - kick knackers me out massively and I’m gasping.
Session today was some warm up 100’s with different breathing patterns, with a 100 kick thrown in there (the really slow bit!), and then 3x:
140 cruise into 60 harder
100 cruise into 40 harder
60 cruise into 40 harder
60 hard
You can see on the graph broadly appropriate spikes in both pace and HR. It’ll be interesting now to be able to compare some of my pool HR data to the OW, when that point in the year comes around. I’ve always said I swim crap in the OW, but a piece of me has always wondered if I just don’t try as hard and am too cautious.
I have a chest strap for the 920 which stores the HR data and then syncs it back to the watch when you save the activity. Not used it yet (feel like a bit of a tool wearing one at the best of times let alone in just jammers in public) but will give it a go in the new club squad sessions when I’m back to it. Be interesting to see if it’s actually 350bpm after 100m or if it just feels like that 
I used mine for a bit. But as you said, it was a faff to wear it all the time and you did feel a bit self conscious. It also did slip. And after time, the chlorine corroded the fabric bit of the strap (the black bit, not the stiffer blue bit) and it’s now just so weak you can’t put it on tightly enough to hold it in place.
It was nice to have, and in reality I would think when it worked was more accurate than OHR, but I wouldn’t buy another.
I always use the HRM-tri in races though.
Yeah, I used mine for a bit then got fed up of it slipping after turns. Still use it in the summer under wetsuit as that holds it in place. Wouldn’t bother buying one but got it as a good deal on the Tri bundle with the Tri strap too.
Yea mine came with the bundle. It’s all blue (strap included) and has silicone gripper all the way round but I can see it slipping on turns etc unless done up super tight